The invention relates to a conveyor system for stacks of paper or the like formed from sheet layers and a method for transferring such stacks between a supply station and a discharge conveyor.
EP 465 916 B describes such a conveyor system and a method. It is used in installations where stacks of flat materials are juxtaposed in rows, e.g. in so-called small format cross-cutters, which produce from paper webs stacks of use format sheets, e.g. copy paper packs. The stacks arriving in juxtaposed manner in a row are transferred in the conveyor system to discharge conveyors, which run at right angles to the supply direction to the machine. The individual rows are connected to one another therein, so that the individual stacks can be separated to a predetermined spacing and in this way generally pass to packing machines.
EP 465 916 B describes an installation having in a discharge station two substantially parallel discharge conveyor sections on which the stack rows can be placed as desired. During normal operation this offers the advantage that the usually very large output of the manufacturing machine for the stacks can be distributed over several packing sections. The possibility also arises in the case of a problem or fault in one of the packing sections, as desired, only to supply one of the discharge conveyor sections with an optionally reduced machine capacity, but without stopping the machine.
Building up on this principle, EP 514 783 B describes a dividing up of the gripper row, which grips the stack row, in the centre, so that in each case one part of the stack row can be placed on each of the two discharge sections.